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Opinion: Guest Opinions

In-state tuition for Natives about fairness

By Erika T. Wurth

Posted:
05/25/2014 01:00:00 AM MDT

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, one of the most nightmarish episodes in Native American history in Colorado. Over 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed, mainly women and children, their town burned, their wounded killed after the initial massacre, their bodies mutilated. Also this year, a Democratic proposal to give all Colorado-associated tribal students in-state tuition was crushed, thanks to Senator Mary Hodge, the swing vote in the Senatorial committee. Her response? "I don't know how long we can make reparations (to Native Americans) or how far we'd have to go back. I guess my point is we can't fix what we did."

I beg to differ.

Denver is a city where Natives often fly under the radar, even though it's a crossroads for at least 100 tribes. But we don't fit into the skiing, hiking, biking vision that Denver has of itself and so unless it's Columbus Day, we barely exist.

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Hodge's only other response was that Natives can go to Fort Lewis College, where students enrolled with their tribes have a full tuition waiver (tribal enrollment being it's own special insanity). I went to Fort Lewis. I also grew up outside of Denver and went to school in Idaho Springs, where the most popular choice of hairstyle was the mullet, which I did not have. And I read dragon books. So I wasn't popular. But I dreamed of getting out. After Fort Lewis, I got MA, then a Ph.D. in Creative Writing/Literature at the University of Colorado. A good number of Native students at Fort Lewis went on. I come from a family that was able to help me financially somewhat but the environment at Fort Lewis, beginning with the fact that they gave tuition waivers, made me feel confident enough to apply to graduate school. When I first got to college, I didn't know you could get Ph.D.s in things like Creative Writing. The year that I graduated with my Ph.D., I was told I was one of six Native students in the country graduating that year with a Ph.D. in any field. Graduating from high school is hard enough for many Native students, let alone college, let alone graduating with an advanced degree. At that point, our numbers dwindle, to well, six. And again, I'm including students from reservations and Indian country, in places like Denver and the surrounding areas.

Many other states — Michigan, Iowa, Montana, and Minnesota — offer either in-state tuition or tuition waivers for students enrolled with their tribes. I'm sure they would tell you, that's not what's breaking the bank.

I want to be clear: I believe in free school. But people like Hodge want non-Natives to imagine that we are taking even more of their hard-earned tax money, that we're living off of it and well. I'm not going to tell you to go to a reservation to see how true this isn't, I'm going to tell you to take a 20 minute drive to West Colfax if you live in Denver, because that's one of the places where many Natives live, and you could see how true that isn't right in your own backyard.

The idea that maybe a few hundred Native students getting not free tuition, but in-state tuition (and only those who have a historical tribal association with Colorado and only those coming from out of state) would put taxpayers and the University of Colorado in even a tiny amount of financial distress is lunacy. This is not about reparations. This is about a good majority of Native students, many of whom, like me, grew up barely 40 minutes from CU Boulder, often who are first, and certainly barely second (like me) generation students not going into exponential debt when they often come from next to nothing in the first place. And it's not even about them, because those kids would already get in-state tuition.

It's about not being ghettoized into one school. About Colorado allowing us to be part of the picture, because we are here. I don't care where you're from or what your background is, I don't want to take anything away from your children. For God's sake, I've gone into over $100,000 of debt and I've been teaching your children for 15 years. I'm a writer first, but I love my students. But if you would take that 20-minute drive, you would be as sad and frustrated as I am.

Erika T. Wurth's "Crazyhorse's Girlfriend", has been accepted by Curbside Splendor. She teaches at Western Illinois University. She's Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee and was raised outside of Denver.

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